For "old timers."

I bought one from the great Marty Forscher who designed a self contained unit for the then great NikonF. The Nikon motor drive had a battery pack that you hung on your shoulder. Not very convenient.

I didn't use it much, actually only for one big job and then it sat for years. I still enjoy the slowness of the thumb advance. It lets me think of whether or not the shot is worth it. I also try for "the decisive moment." I think the first integrated motor drive ( winder ) was on my "amateur" Nikon N2000.

Seeing the Caldor department store mentioned brings back old memories. I still have a set of four Kodak neutral test cards. Marked price was $1.25. The Caldor discount price on the sticker was $1.01.

Weegee said:

I remember going into my favorite camera store and the owner telling me, " I got something special that I'd like you to try.!'

It was the Minolta MAXXUM 7000. Autofocus & motor drive! Wow, what a leap in technology in one camera.

I tried it and was amazed at seeing whatever I pointed at coming into focus by itself. It also made a racket with all those mechanical metal gears moving. And right then and there I thought, " might come in handy when my vision starts deteriorating!"

Sadly, nowadays, some people are lost without auto focus, just like they don't know how to shift a manual transmission! Nostalgia for us of a certain age. Those who knock it will eventually live through it themselves in 10-20 or 30 years. That's what makes us human.......

Anyone of you own this camera or remember the same feeling as I did? And how about the first motor drive you ever tried? Marty Forscher anyone?


1985 I think.

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I owned the 7000 for a bit and Marty sorted out a few camera messes I got myself into when I was starting out.

If your'e going down memory lane, there was also Lens and Repro and the Kays. Ah, the photo district days in NYC.

The 7000 was a brilliant camera on so many levels. Minolta was a tech powerhouse back then. Much of that thinking gave Sony their jump start with the Alpha digital SLR's.

First motor drive? I vaguely remember having a drive on a Topcon Super D. Maybe it was the OM1 that replaced it.

Purpledog said:

I couldn't afford a 7000 when it came out, I had just saved up for 2 years to buy an X700 to go with my X300.

Years later, after I'd moved on to a 7xi, I picked up a cheap 7000 to play with, used it mostly for B&W but never really like it - a bit agricultural compared to the 7xi, and without the 'class' of the X700.
It didn't last long, I traded both for two 800si bodies - I loved those cameras. What a piece of machinery!

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I find it hard to believe anyone could love this camera for any reason other than nostalgia. I’ve been getting into film this year (for the first time); I started with my dad’s Nikon FTn and loved the solid construction and mechanical feel. I then switched to my mom’s Olympus OM20 and loved it’s simplicity and compactness. Then I finally picked up my father in law’s Minolta 800si, and to be honest it just feels like a slower, less accurate, out of date DSLR. It has no magic.

When I first got the MD-12 motor drive for Nikon FE2 was like "holy macro, I wish I could afford the film this thing can burn" and dry fired it relentlessly. What a glorious sound/feeling.

Those were excting times. If you knew the right camera techs with the right skills they could do magic.

The 7000 and 9000 were Minolta's top models, but they didn't have the market saturation or the finances.

Things were changing fast at that time. We could go into a whole other discussion on what happens when a camera maker falls off the innovation curve.

Back to winders and drives. They did solve one handling problem. You could keep the camera to your eye and advance the film quickly. Sure, you could run through a 36 exposure roll quickly. That raised another problem: 35mm cameras weren't fast to reload.

By the time all this sorted out you ended up with huge 35mm rigs.

The Motor Drive on my Canon 1N would fire 6.3 frames per second, that would eat a roll of 36 in under 6 seconds, I hardly used it for that reason. I still have the 1N as well as the Minolta 7000.

Hi,

The place: Poughkeepsie, NY. The era: 1983ish. The store: Arax Photo.

I had bought myself an FE with 50/1.8 AI kit lens in that store in1979 with graduation money. Later, an additional AI lens or two. Now, working at IBM, I turned my attention to the new FA. Used newfangled AI-S lenses and offered Shutter Priority mode to the FE Aperture Priority. Bought an FA with an AI-S 35/2 plus a SB-15 strobe and an MD-15 motor drive and an MF-12 data back.

That was quite the shopping spree. My very first for anything, actually. I had always been a bits and pieces over time buyer. Always on Specifications, not brand names. But that FE had worked very well and an excursion with a Vivitar lens taught me to stick with Nikon glass.

Anyway, I can still recall going over each and every item with the salesman. What I needed was a kit mainly for documenting fire and rescue calls. And, lots of those at night. The automation of the FA would go a long way in that role. And, it did. Until, some many years later, the shutter crinkled itself up.

But, the story doesn't end there. Some months later, the salesman called me. Someone had traded in an F2 with bags of lenses. Come on in and see, as we can make a great deal on the whole mess. I did, and they did, and I wound up with it all. I picked and chose my keeper lenses, and swapped out the aperture rings for AI ones. The rest, including the F2, I sold off piecemeal and broke even.

I still shoot with those lenses today.

But, the time spent in that store, I still recall. Actually, there are a couple shops near me where the same experience can be had. Much better than online shopping.

Stan

So true. There was something very special about going into a dedicated photo shop.

Hi,

In our area, Caldor replaced Grant's. I remember it well. Oddly enough, from a month or so ago. I picked up this used book, price tag still on it. Store: Caldor.

Stan

I recently got the 7000 but gave it away as a gift because the lcd strip inside the Viewfinder was not working at all

I replaced it with a minty Dynax 5 (great camera)

Like you Stan, I bought a Nikon FA just for the metering. As mostly a "chrome" shooter, I needed to get the exposure to within 1/3 of a stop. Over or under that 1/3 and I wasn't satisfied.

The FA advertising suggested that Nikon had programmed, into the camera, 50,000 different scenes and would match the scene you were taking with one in the camera's memory bank! Foolproof. Not quite, a little bit better but still made some errors.

I have to admit it but now digital is foolproof on the metering side. With Photoshop and RAW, there isn't a file exposed by the camera that I can't get an excellent photograph out of the file.

Hi,

Yeah. The motor drive under the body, and a battery under the drive. Then, add a 250 shot film back and another battery under the first so it could shoot all 250 frames.

Wind your own film off of movie reels and then have a huge developing tank and reel. Oh, what fun we are missing these days!

Stan

I don’t know how to ride a horse. Does that make me less of a traveler because I only know how to drive a car?

Weegee said:

It was the Minolta MAXXUM 7000.

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My first AF camera was the 7xi. That camera fit my hand better than any other, but the push button interface was a turn off - I didn't have the discipline to use it properly and ended up using it mostly as a big point & shoot. Eventually, I upgraded to the 600is, then the 7 & 9, which were all vastly better in the UI department.

Gone for Good said:

Sadly, nowadays, some people are lost without auto focus, just like they don't know how to shift a manual transmission!

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Not sure how sad it is, but yes, I'm sure it would be no more than a novelty for most ... like dialing a phone ! (I remember bring an old rotary phone up from the basement and my daughter just tried to "push" her fingers in the holes for each number.

Personally, I have no desired to go back to MF, especially on a DSLR with a VF that' makes it a struggle. On a mirrorless camera, I'd be okay with MF for landscapes (and would prefer it for macro, whether the lens can AF or not).

I'm also buying a 2003 pickup truck with a 5-speed manual transmission this spring
- Dennis
--
Gallery at http://kingofthebeasts.smugmug.com

It's been a while since I picked up a SLR, autofocus or manual focus. I was at a thrift store and there was a near mint Nikon D5000. Granted, it's a decade old, but the price was right for a "fun camera".

It all came back to me fast and hard: that's a small, slightly dim focusing screen. The autofocus worked fine, just like the D90 I used at work. I'm sure more modern SLRs are better, but I'm used to the magnified manual focus on a mirrorless.

I passed on the camera. At that price I'm sure someone starting out will appreciate that camera more than I will.

I was shooting Olympus at the time the 7000 came out so I wasn't interested in it but I recently bought one with a 50mm f1.8, 35-70mm f3.5 and the 70-210mm f4 'beer can' for $60. I gave teh camera away and kept the lenses to use on my Sony A-mount body.

Hi,

Yes. I can think of places you can't go, and work you can't do, without knowledge of horse power. Like, down into the Grand Canyon, for example. Well, a mule given the terrain, but that is close enough to a horse. if you can ride one, you can ride the other.

If you only saw it from one of the car parking lots, you missed the whole thing.

Stan

The first AF motor drive camera I owned was an Olympus fixed zoom 35mm with a 28-110 f2.8 lens I bought in the late 90s. Before that starting in the 60s it was manual all the way.

big aperture said:

I recently got the 7000 but gave it away as a gift because the lcd strip inside the Viewfinder was not working at all

I replaced it with a minty Dynax 5 (great camera)

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Ohhh, I loved my Dynax 5 (aka Maxxum 5 in the US). It bit the dust last month -- AF died.

I got a Dynax 7 for $99 from KEH. The price was reduced because of sticky grip syndrome, but rubbing alcohol removed the stickiness just fine. I like the Dynax 7 very much so far, but I miss the featherweight Dynax 5. The 5 was so light & portable.





I'm laughing at this picture because that lens is one of the worst Minolta ever made on one of the best cameras Minolta ever made.

--
"Never let good clouds go to waste." -- Margaret Bourke-White